Even though the events in this book took place years before COVID-19 hit the world, the lessons of my pilgrimage take on new relevance and urgency in light of the global pandemic and its aftermath. Writing this book in parallel with the world encountering vast and long-lasting changes caused me to ponder the relevance of where we work.

In particular, I have thought about the soul-searching that organisations and employees have gone through during the pandemic. With my researcher’s hat on I asked myself, what does it all mean for the workplace?

The motivation in asking this question is a fundamental desire to address the current crisis and to help shape better places of work – not offices. It is not about seeking reactive answers with a short shelf life, but rather developing a guide that leads us to better work environments. This version of workplaces goes beyond proper sanitisation, physically distanced, and well-ventilated offices. It even goes beyond finding the sweet spot of working from home or the office.

The best version of a reimagined workplace will emerge from revisiting our assumptions about the way we use space to host the ever-evolving notion of work. It is also a pathway which might lead us to a better version of ourselves.

FormalPara What Makes the Boat Go Faster?

In May of 2020 the Prime Minister of Australia addressed the nation to communicate his path to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic [6]. The PM recounted a story from a time prior to his ministry when he visited the New Zealand Royal Yacht Squadron, who were defending their hard-won 1995 America’s Cup title.

The PM commented on the dilapidated state of their offices, their old chairs and scuffed table – a stark contrast to the luxury and expensive image of yacht racing associated with the America’s Cup. His hosts quickly interjected: “in Team New Zealand you only ask one question: what makes the boat go faster?"

The PM conceded the condition of their offices made no difference to the speed of the boat. And it didn’t, New Zealand won the 2000 America’s Cup.

The PM’s speech went on, but I stopped listening, my mind flashed to a time when I was presenting the findings of recently completed workplace research to the executives of a large organisation. The mood was tense with no questions at the end, but there was just one comment. I was told that if they had to work in refurbished shipping containers it wouldn’t affect their bottom line.

I was left wondering if their confidence in working from shipping containers was because they were so good at what they did that they could do it anywhere, or that they couldn’t see a connection between their workplace and the bottom line.

A subsequent apology brought to the surface the immense pressure the executives were under as the reason of such a blunt comment. But the apology was about the tone, not the message itself. Throughout my career I have been challenged with views related to the impact of workplace on performance, but none were expressed as earnestly as that.

I too have asked myself rhetorically many times, “does it matter where we work?” I will admit my motivation was to build an arsenal of reasons why it actually does matter where we work, even if we are incredibly good at what we do.

I now asked myself honestly, what if it really, really, doesn’t matter where we work?